Unfunded List’s 18th round of grant proposal review is in the books. Since our first round, we have always taken a moment to pause and consider what an honor it is to be able to read and evaluate documents of such importance and passion. Since 2015, we have reviewed well over 1000 grant proposals and each one contained a promise to repair the world.
Our next round is coming right up. We are looking for more proposals to review and we are always looking for more evaluators. We have 3 exciting partnerships this Fall and we are expecting a wide array of proposals to review. In particular, we will have proposals related to economic justice from the Washington, DC area thanks to a partnership the Next Gen Giving Circle. We will have more international development proposals from our ongoing partnership with Kuja. And we also expect several dozen proposals for oral healthcare programs from community organizations all over the US.
This will be a brief update since we still have a lot of planning and preparation to do for the Fall round, but I did want to pause and take a moment to recognize once again some of the organizations we reviewed this past round. All in all, 160 evaluators completed a total of 600 evaluations on 55 proposals. We are expecting a greater number of proposals and evaluators this Fall. To help us prepare for our upcoming round, I have chosen one organization to highlight for each of the 3 thematic areas we are expecting this Fall.
Justice Grant Proposals – Training for Change on behalf of Talleristas por la Justicia (TxJ)
This was our second time reviewing a proposal from Training for Change. The first proposal they shared with us in 2022 was their submission to Mosaic Momentum’s Movement Infrastructure RFP. They did not get the grant but they did receive helpful and candid feedback from us. We were pleased to hear from them again this Spring when they submitted a proposal on behalf of one of their fiscally sponsored organizations working in Colombia called Talleristas por la Justicia (TxJ). Applying for funding across cultural borders as a fiscally sponsored organization is a big challenge, but one that we are very familiar with thanks to our partnership with Kuja.
TxJ applied for a grant from the Tinker Foundation here in the US. Though it was not funded, we found it to be a clear description of the program and our evaluators did their best to provide helpful and candid suggestions for improving the proposal. We were able to find 20 different reviewers from a wide variety of backgrounds to review the submission and I enjoyed the report discussion. We hope to review another submission from Training for Change soon.
Read TxJ’s Spring 2024 submission here.
International Development Grant Proposals – Fundación Kaleidos
Argentina has endured a longstanding economic crisis and a recent political upheaval. Civil society leaders are concerned and doing their best to maintain a healthy society. One such organization is Fundación Kaleidos and we have been pleased to review their proposal drafts for the past year as part of our partnership with Kuja. Being Argentinian, Kaleidos is a Spanish-speaking organization but when they apply for grants from other countries they often have to submit proposals in English. Their review included multiple evaluations in Spanish and Kuja was able to provide a translator for our report discussion.
The vast majority of grant proposals are submitted in English, even from regions where English is not a main language. For example, this round we reviewed a proposal submitted from Malawi to the Japanese Government that was written in English. In a previous round,we reviewed a proposal from Somalia submitted to a funder in Finland and that proposal was written in English as well. The proposal from Kaleidos highlights this – it is written in English and was submitted to the Czech Republic Development Corporation.
Read Kaleidos’s Spring 2024 submission here.
Oral Healthcare Grant Proposals – Wounded Veterans Relief Fund
Here at Unfunded List we are very excited to begin our partnership with the Dental Trade Alliance Foundation. Their executive director Sarah Miller has been one of our evaluators for years and we are looking forward to offering proposal review to all the great community organizations that apply for grants from DTAF every year. You can read more about the partnership in this press release.
Coincidentally, we received a proposal related to oral healthcare this Spring, before our partnership with DTAF even began. Mike Durkee is a former US Army helicopter pilot with 13 years of service, including deployments to Baghdad, Iraq, and Kandahar, Afghanistan. His service continues today as founder of Wounded Veterans Relief Fund and that service now involves grant proposals. We learned from Mike that 85% of disabled veterans are ineligible for dental care from the VA. His proposal was a general document submitted to a wide variety of national funders mostly focused on serving veterans. Our review included 20 different evaluators with a wide variety of backgrounds (including a few veterans). I enjoyed speaking with Mike about his work and brainstorming next steps. This was a great trial run for our partnership with DTAF this Fall.
